Attract and Retain Employees- Strive to be a "Best" Company
By implementing and maintaining best practices employers will be recognized as one of the best places to work.
Advancement Opportunity
By creating formal career paths that outline three to five year growth supported by a learning environment companies can offer
Advancement Opportunity.
Work & Life Balance
Work & Life Balance practices can be as simple as creating fair time off practices / rules and varies from company to company and industry to industry.
Inclusion Practices
An employee suggestion box or an employee suggestion committee are simple Inclusion Practices.
Management Effectiveness
To attract and retain employees Management Effectiveness is important.
Communicate
Employers should Communicate how their employees' jobs connect with company goals along with company goals, news, etc.
Job Satisfaction can depend upon less monetary aspects of employment, competitive compensation and benefits.
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Summer 2005
S. Hayes Mac Arthur
Director, Human Resources & Human Resources Consulting Group
A few months ago I was invited to
speak on the topic of career choices
for business majors at a local
university. When delivering this
presentation I often reflect on my
own career decisions. Nearly six
months before my graduation I
went to the library to research over
30 local companies. I wanted to
work for the best company possible, so I classified my top choices into
a "Best" category based on reputation in the community, stability of the
industry, commitment to employees and room for growth and
advancement. I produced approximately 15 letters on my early model
word processor and mailed each "A" company a personalized note and
resume. A few interviews and a few rejection letters later I landed my
first job.
Today, although some students may research companies, many students
post their resumes on Internet based "job boards" and wait for
prospective employers to contact them. Few collegiate job seekers will
actually pick up five different newspapers and spend Sunday afternoon
browsing through all of the job opportunity advertisements. Fewer still
will go to the library or review a full prospectus to identify their own
"best" companies. Job seekers with a few years of experience will go
onto Internet job boards such as Monster.com and Hotjobs.com and
plug in key words to see what jobs might be available. Within five
minutes and with a few clicks these individuals can send out a cookie
cutter letter and resume to 20 companies. These job boards even allow
job seekers to set up search agents so that they will be
contacted every time a particular position is posted.
Others can post their resume on one of the job boards
and let technology do the work.
I recently spoke with a job seeker who had posted his
resume on the Internet. I was amazed to learn that he
had been contacted by 28 other companies and/or
headhunters in the three days following the posting of
his resume. Another job seeker admitted that he
contacted a headhunter when he decided that he wanted
a new job. The headhunter wrote his cover letter,
drafted his resume and then arranged four interviews
for the following day. When I inquired how he would
evaluate the different opportunities, he said that he
would choose the "best" company based on his own set
of important criteria, just as I had for my first job.
Technology and the growing number of recruiting
services have definitely changed both the way
candidates learn of new job opportunities and the way
that employers locate candidates. Years ago it would
have been taboo to leave your employer in fewer than
seven years, but today it is acceptable to change jobs
every two to three years. Both employers and
employees are less loyal and the information to assist
an individual to learn of a new opportunity is only a
few keystrokes away or already knocking on your front
door. Earlier this week, I received a junk e-mail that
promised to "Give you the ammunition to negotiate
your biggest raise ever." Another e-mail outlined "25
executive positions in your city." Last week I received
a phone call from a headhunter promising a senior level auditing job.
He did not even bother to ask if I was an accountant.
Every prospective employer must strive to be a best company and one
that offers the best jobs. It is just as important to be a company whose
employees would like to continue working for. I have found that
individuals evaluating new jobs use similar criteria to evaluate their
current employer as well. Companies that want to be a place whre
employees want to work should pay particular attention to:
advancement opportunity, work & life balance, inclusion in decisions,
management effectiveness, communication and job satisfaction.
Companies can offer Advancement Opportunity
by creating formal career paths that outline three to five year
growth supported by a learning environment. Management must be clear
about job expectations for both prospective employees and current
employees, and performance and progress must be formally monitored.
Work & Life Balance practices vary
from industry to industry and company to company, and can be as
simple as creating fair time off practices and rules. A manager
who leads by example and solicits employees for suggestions will
have employees that are more loyal. Enabling employees to have some
control over when, where and how they perform their jobs, for example,
could be the difference between an employee who is happy and one
who is looking for a new job.
The best companies to work for have practices that prove all employees
are valued and able to participate in decision-making. Inclusion
practices could be as simple as having an employee suggestion box
or maybe an employee suggestion committee. Employees who contribute
to the decision making process are much more likely to support those
decisions.
Management Effectiveness is important
to both attracting and retaining employees. Both prospective and
current employees want to work for managers that set clear expectations
and objectives and those who know how to deliver feedback. With
daily newspaper headlines highlighting corporate fraud and illegal
activities, companies that promote corporate integrity throughout
management will be where people want to work.
In addition to Communicating company
goals, news, etc. employers should show how their employees' jobs
connect with company goals. Employees who understand how their individual
roles contribute to the bottom line are generally more committed
to both those goals and the overall company mission. Communication
is much more than giving employees information; listening to employees'
suggestions and giving feedback is an important part of the relationship.
Job Satisfaction is not only dependent
upon competitive compensation and benefits; it is also contingent
upon less monetary aspects of employment. Employees who are given
challenging work, assuming they have been provided with the adequate
tools and training, will
be more satisfied than those who have
been assigned routine and mundane tasks.
Perhaps the most important aspect of job
satisfaction, not to mention the cheapest,
is recognition given for an individual's
contributions. Unfortunately, too many
employers fail to adequately recognize
employees for their efforts.
Employers who want to be recognized as
the best places to work need to implement
and maintain best practices. Best
practices such as the ones mentioned
above are not expensive to implement and
maintain. In fact, many are simply
common sense management principals
that require zero or little monetary
investment. Both existing employees and
prospective employees will certainly
recognize organizations that are
committed to being a best place to work.
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